Building performance evaluation research fundingApril 2010

The TSB’s role is to stimulate technology-enabled innovation for boosting UK growth and productivityThere are two important research funding opportunities about to be launched by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB). The first is a call for proposals for the evaluation of the performance of buildings, either recently completed or about to be completed. We do not yet have the details but expect that there will be quite significant sums available not just for analysing the technical performance but also the occupant satisfaction. BSRIA will be very happy to help you with either of these aspects, either by undertaking the monitoring or providing you with the instruments for the technical monitoring and advice for the satisfaction measurement. Please contact Graeme Owen (graeme.owen@bsria.co.uk) if you have a building that you would like to have evaluated. We will let you know more details about the call and can provide advice through the bid process.

The call opens on 10th May 2010. It is an £8m investment, spread across two years, and covers data aggregation, analysis, interpretation and dissemination across a range of building types, both domestic and non-domestic. Successful applicants will secure funding to cover the cost of evaluating the performance of case study buildings they design, build, own and/or operate, thus providing them with improved insight into what works and what doesn't. The TSB's aim is to establish the best way to deliver predictably lower impact buildings.

The Design for Future Climate call opens on 14th June 2010. It is a £4.9m investment to assist design teams in developing adaptation strategies to improve resistance to climate change of specific buildings they are already working on. The focus will be on improving building resilience and adaptation to climate change, thus extending the commercial viability of buildings. Projects must be on a specific building / refurbishment project with a client and design team both applying together for the funding. The funding will cover all large building projects except domestic retrofit, with 100% of the cost of the adaptation strategy coming from grant funding, matched by demonstrable spend on the building project by the client. The competition will be run in two parts. The first part will open in June and funding of up to £2.5m will be available. The second part will open in 2011 and will have a value of £2.4m.

Both of these bids come from the Low Impact Buildings Programme of the TSB. Visit the TSB website for more information.